hcj Featured

Kansas daily brief

Kansas and US news for busy people - Jan 16, 2026 edition

Greg Loving

16 Jan 2026 • 2 min read

🌾Kansas

Kansas adds 3,800 jobs in November with unemployment at 3.8% (below the 4.6% national rate); health care led annual growth while hospitality shed positions.
Kansas House passes bill 85-35 declaring international organizations like the UN lack enforcement authority in the state; Democrats called it unnecessary theater.
58% of Democratic voters undecided in governor's race between Sens. Holscher and Corson, with both candidates largely unknown statewide seven months before the August primary.
Boeing's Wichita union reaches deal with 20% wage increases over five years, $6,000 ratification bonus, and improved benefits for 1,600 aerospace workers; vote due January 30.
KSU nuclear engineering enrollment surging driven by tech industry interest and access to one of only 31 university reactors in the U.S.

🇺🇸 US

Trump will try to force Big Tech to fund power plants: Administration proposes requiring Amazon, Google and other tech giants to bid on 15-year contracts worth billions to build new power plants as AI-driven data centers strain the 13-state PJM grid and spike electricity costs.
Iran massacres protesters under internet blackout: Security forces killed thousands during nationwide protests while deliberately cutting communications, prompting Trump to order the repositioning of the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group in the Middle East.
Trump threatens military deployment in Minnesota: President threatens to invoke Insurrection Act to deploy military after ICE officer fatally shot woman during massive operation tied to welfare-fraud scandal in Somali immigrant community.
$38 trillion boomer wealth transfer hits luxury real estate: Baby boomers passing down over $38 trillion globally in next decade, with 1.2 million heirs inheriting $4.6 trillion in real estate including $2.4 trillion in U.S. properties.
Trump hedges on Venezuela: Despite Venezuelan opposition leader gifting Trump her Nobel Prize, administration signals preference for dealing with interim government as CIA Director Ratcliffe becomes first cabinet member to visit Caracas since Maduro's seizure.

Weather

January 16 1979: Shah flees Iran

Faced with an army mutiny and violent demonstrations against his rule, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the leader of Iran since 1941, is forced to flee the country. Fourteen days later, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of the Islamic revolution, returned after 15 years of exile and took control of Iran.